Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things

March 1, 1987
Lakoff reviews a wide range of studies in "cognitive semantics," a new field that attempts to understand mind through empirical studies of the way people categorize. He provides several detailed conceptual "case studies," which aptly bring out the richness of the English language, and Whorfian-type examinations of the way different cultures view the world as exemplified in their language (the book's title derives from a classification in Dyirbal, an aboriginal language of Australia). Though this new "science" is supposed to yield insights more accurate and useful than traditional (i.e., "non-empirical") philosophy, the approach to philosophy here is superficial. For academic linguistics collections. Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, D.C.

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